Arrested Development Boss on Mixed Reviews, a Feature Film and the Lost George Clooney Cameo

It’s been nearly two weeks since Netflix’s high profile relaunch of Arrested Development, and the reaction has been… polarizing. For his part, series creator Mitch Hurtwitz is taking the mixed reviews in relative stride.

“I try to have a pretty open attitude about it,” he said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. “Everybody wants to be loved all the time, [but] it’s not realistic. It’s certainly not realistic if you’re going to be ambitious in terms of changing the form. There are risks either way. Had I done the exact same show I did last time there’d be blowback to that.”

In fact, Hurtwitz admitted he set out to “use the new media to tell a different kind of story” and “not give people exactly what they want [and] surprise them. And I think it’s inevitable if you do that people are not going to be on board at first — or maybe ever. But that’s a risk I willingly took.”

And is willing to take again.

Hurwitz said he’s “game” to keep the franchise going, either on the big screen or via a fifth season on Netflix — although one mistake he won’t be making this time around is “constantly teasing the audience” with the possibility of more original content. “I don’t have a timeline yet,” he insisted. “If there’s more I promise you we will put a date out there.”

Hurtwitz ended the call by sharing details of a “great Mitt Romney” bit that never made it into Season 4. “George Sr. has this land in Mexico and they was going to be constantly spooked and chased off the land by these really handsome men — we were going to get people like George Clooney,” he explained. “And they’d be like, ‘Who are these guys? Who are these Mexicans that are trying to get us off their property?’ And at one point [one of the men was] going to say, ‘We are the Mexican Romneys!'”